FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT IMMIGRANT WORKERS - PAGE 4

An Ellicott City couple were indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore yesterday, accused of harboring and employing illegal immigrants to operate their food-supply businesses. Bao Ping Wang, 38, and his wife, Trang Lu, 40, owners and operators of Chang Jiang Seafood Supplier Inc. in Baltimore and Arctic Seafood Inc. in Atlanta, also are charged with money-laundering charges. According to the indictment, the couple housed or concealed immigrants and undocumented Chinese workers employed by Chang Jiang Seafood and Arctic Seafood from October 1998 to Sept.

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of a key congressional committee said yesterday that an increase in the number of immigration visas for high-tech workers should be contingent on the issuance of new rules to protect American workers. Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House subcommittee on immigration, said that any increase in the number of high-tech or H-1B visas should be held up until the U.S. Department of Labor issues the regulations to implement a law passed by Congress in 1998. "The administration, for reasons that I don't know, has been dragging its feet.

EASTON -- Two days after they netted 56 suspected illegal aliens at a Talbot County chicken processing plant, federal agents came up empty-handed yesterday during a similar raid at a broiler plant in Dorchester County.The reason? Company officials had already ordered 40 immigrant employees to stay home unless they could provide work credentials.On Wednesday, the day after U.S. Immigration and Naturalization agents raided the Allen Family Foods Inc. plant in Cordova, officials at ConAgra Broiler Co. in Hurlock reviewed employee records for discrepancies.

In a surprising victory for union organizers, electricians from Eastern Europe who came to the United States under a visitors exchange program have voted unanimously to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The vote, which was formally tabulated in Baltimore yesterday, means the IBEW will have the right to negotiate a contract for the workers with USA-IT Inc. , the Greenbelt company that brought hundreds of workers to the United States from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and other Eastern European countries.

At first glimpse of the 18-wheeler barreling down Broadway yesterday morning, about two dozen men bundled in sweats, wool caps and work boots scurried to the corner of Lombard Street. A thin young man, who maneuvered himself to the front of the crowd, leapt into the back of the cab. The truck driver peered at the pack below and held up one finger, as if to say, "Only one today." It's a typical morning at this 7-Eleven parking lot, which for years has been a gathering spot for day laborers desperate for work.

NOGALES, Mexico -- They had made it across the border, 20 of them, through a hole in the barbed-wire fence in the dark Arizona desert. Juan Carlos Reyes Hernandez, 25, with two children at home and a third on the way, was among them. He planned to work in construction and send his earnings back home. He had promised to pay the "coyote," or smuggler, two months' wages to lead him safely to Tucson. Instead, he walked into a trap. The group was less than a mile into the United States when three men with pistols set upon them.

HOOPERS ISLAND - The nimble fingers of Consuelo Morales, 52, were flying through what looked like mountains of steamed crabs piled high on stainless steel tables. Gripping her paring knife, she ripped away shell after shell to dig out fluffy white lumps, deftly flicking the crab meat - the Chesapeake's most prized bounty - into plastic "Capt. Charlie" brand containers. After months of uncertainty, Morales and a dozen other veterans from central Mexico were back at work yesterday in a crab-packing plant in this swampy corner of Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Day in history: March 25In A.D. 752, Pope Stephen II died, only two days after his election.In 1634, Maryland was founded by English colonists sent by the second Lord Baltimore.In 1894, Jacob S. Coxey begin leading an army of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. to demand help from the federal goverment.In 1911, 146 immigrant workers were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. In New York.In 1918, French composer Claude Debussy died in ParisIn 1957, the Treaty of Rome established the European Economic CommunityIn 1965, tyhe Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.

As an immigrant workers "freedom ride" passed through Baltimore yesterday, participants demonstrated for privileges such as amnesty for illegal immigrants and in-state college tuition rates for foreign-born students. "My legal status will not allow me to accomplish my dreams," said Maria Blas, a Mexican native who lives in Shakopee, Minn., told the cheering crowd of about 200 people at the University of Maryland Law School Plaza. "I do not deserve to be punished for being here." The mainly Spanish-speaking group was part of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a nationwide demonstration backed by labor unions.

Ernie Miller starts the day off at 5 a.m. with a smile, a pocketful of pamphlets and a cooler full of water as he tries to recruit Latino workers near Catonsville for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 70. But by 6:30 a.m., he has depleted his supply of pamphlets, water and much of his optimism. "This is like banging your head against a wall," he said. Experts and union organizers say that immigrant workers, particularly Latinos, are becoming increasingly important to Baltimore-area unions.